Don’t ‘Date Range’ Your Anesthesia Claims
Question: The provider I work for performed an anesthesia service for a Medicare beneficiary that started close to midnight on one day and ended early the next morning. Can I put both dates as the date of service? Connecticut Subscriber Answer: According to Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) NGS, anesthesia claims cannot be date ranged. >NGS says “if anesthesia began at 11:00 p.m. on 2/5/2024 and ended at 2:00 a.m. on 2/6/2024, only the date anesthesia began should be reported on the claim; in this case, you would use 2/5/2024 as the date of service [DOS].” So, you’d list the DOS started as your DOS and then count total time, making sure you list the total time in minutes. You’d include the total time (in minutes) on line item 24G on the CMS-1500 claim form or the respective electronic claim. NGS says it will take care of converting minutes to the appropriate quantity billed (QB) units. If your patient is covered by a different payer, make sure you check with them regarding their own policies for date ranging if the anesthesia service covers multiple calendar days. Rachel Dorrell, MA, MS, CPC-A, CPPM, Production Editor, AAPC 
